


through hell or highwater

by Justausernameonline



Series: In the Times and Days of Glory Lost [1]
Category: Incredibles (Pixar Movies)
Genre: Gen, Younger Self - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 23:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15544527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justausernameonline/pseuds/Justausernameonline
Summary: She’s seven years old, been around for awhile, and she tries her best not to do things that warrant a bogeyman under her bed, if that is how it works.Until Helen believes for sure one night something is there, wants her for evening munchies and the like, and she’s stretching for the doorknob, swinging out onto the hall.(A little guesswork on Helen Truax, before Elastigirl and Helen Truax-Golden.)





	through hell or highwater

Sometimes, Helen will reach across the room to get her plush sparrow so she doesn’t touch the floor.  She happens to during the times storms rattle the window panes, trees thrash while the house shudders, and the kinds of nights she’s stuck choosing between burrowing into her warm bed and booking it to her mother’s.  She can’t help it when it sounds like something is going to get in, don’t get her starting on spirits and learning to coexist with them.

Given herself, miracles come with mysteries, come with tragedies, come with setbacks.  It takes a lot for her to believe a bogeyman lives under her bed. She’s seven years old, been around for awhile, and she tries her best not to do things that warrant a bogeyman under her bed, if that is how it works.  

Until Helen believes for sure one night _something_ is there, wants her for evening munchies and the like, and she’s stretching for the doorknob, swinging out onto the hall.  She doesn’t forget her plush sparrow.

She walks quick to the room beside hers on her tiptoes to the cold floor and knocks urgently.  

“Ma.” Her whisper is tight as the door opens to a softly lamplit room and her mother staring back in concern.  

“What is it, kiddo?” she asks, tucking the big reading glasses that complement her brown eyes into her nightdress pocket.  Her long hair hangs loose from its braid and ripples just below her shoulders while she crouches. Helen runs into her arms.  “Is someone here?”

“I think they’re under my bed.  Do you have one too?” Helen whispers.

“I think not,” comes her slight laugh, “if it means them trying to get me.  Want me to check?”

“Please!”

“Here we go, kiddo.”

When she turns on Helen’s lamp and crouches at the edge of the bed’s shadow, Helen darts, trying to pull her back in alarm, stopping only when she gives her a reassuring smile.  “I don’t want it to get you,” Helen says.

“It won’t.” She winks.  “I know how the dark is.  It’s scary once in a while, too, but where’s brightness without darkness, y’hear? I’ll check for you.”

With a light squeeze of Helen’s shoulder, her mother dips into the shadow.  

Helen kneels.  She touches the solid floor, jerking back as if stung.  She holds her sparrow to her chest, holding her breath. Her eyes water.  “Ma…”

And her mother is skirting around from the other end of her bed, pulling her into a hug.  “Oh, dear, please don’t cry!”

“It got you!”

“No, no, it didn’t-- there isn’t, I mean, it’s not there-- I was only there for a moment.  It’s one of my secret powers. See?” She parts from Helen at arm’s length.  Reaching for the lamp, her reach unlike Helen’s, she plays with it for a while that leaves the reason up in the air until she kneels, pointing to their shadows.  She lifts her hand over her own.

Nothing seems to change, but as she shifts lower, the solid shape of her palm fades, her fingertip wavering in and out like stuttering flames defying gravity.  

Helen edges closer, reaching for her mother’s hair.  Still solid, dark as the clearest nights, a rippling silk, grounding; she believes.  She purses her lips, hesitating from her mother’s hand. “Can I touch?”

“You can try.”

Helen’s hand all but slips through as though pushing through heavy steam, and she feels her jaw drop as her mother’s hand and forearm reform themselves.  “You always told me, but I never saw you do it,” she says, and remembers then to stop gripping her sparrow so tightly. “The last time was when you were so _bright_!”

There comes her laughter.  “It’s not for show, kiddo. It’s breathing for me as it’s breathing for you to be elastic.  I can always tell you more but, now,” her mother says, wagging a finger, “do you want to stay in your room and try to sleep, or would you rather learn how to make new treats this evening? You can bake enough to share with Trixie and Thiyah for school.”

“Ma, it’s ‘Thea’.”

“Thea.  Thanks. What do you say, then? It’s quite hard sleeping in this weather.  What about it, Miss Elastic?” Her mother laughs as Helen puffs her chest, flaring her nostrils as she slaps her hands onto her hips.  The headwind draft in the hall even complements her hair, raising it back and forth during her heroic pose. “It’s now, or never!”

“Let’s bake!” Then, “Can we do this more?”

“Once every few days, if we can establish that.  If you can keep up,” her mother adds, and then she’s slipping into the shadowed latticework of the stairway, her little cry the telltale of her descent.

Helen smiles and makes a cheer of her own.  She tucks her sparrow in to follow her mother downstairs, taking two steps at a time without the use of her powers.  Their meals have been cut to two since August as of last year, defaulting to them eating out less, that she even spends dinners with the Andersons at times her mother did her other job.  Other than this, the roof stays above their heads to keep them warm and dry. She knows they aren’t doing good, but what they have is decent. The more meals she gets to spend with her mother, the better.  

When they set out ingredients for crêpes, sweet rolls and other foodstuff in mind, Helen boils water from the well in a pot for tea.  Handfuls of spearmint are plucked from the little garden they keep from crumbling balcony to the open yard with hills for miles.  Their abundance of cheese goes mixed into another batch of rolls that she covers in foil,  the taste test melt-in-your-mouth good; it takes her all to put them away from gobbling the rest, waiting for them to cool before storing them in the refrigerator, a little thing.  Come morning, she has another thing to look forward to.

For once, the round table isn’t empty.


End file.
